Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives are not committing to continue a Liberal program that shifts the cost and responsibility for recycling waste on to the companies that produced it. Amid concerns over the future of Toronto’s blue bin program, the Star asked the opposition parties if they would forge ahead with the Liberals’ Bill 151, now delayed amid “stakeholder consultations,” to shift the cost of recycling away from municipalities. Currently municipalities share the cost with industry, through Stewardship Ontario, but each must administer what amounts to a patchwork of provincewide recycling programs. In British Columbia, industry funded non-profit agency Recycle BC administers a blue bin program that has standard provincewide collection and a dramatically lower rate of contamination — non-recyclables including food waste being binned. Melissa Lantsman, a PC spokeswoman, said the governing Liberals are “all talk” when it comes to recycling and “Ontario has some of the worst waste diversion rates in the entire country.”“When it comes to waste diversion the only thing this government does is waste tax dollars, and divert money away from your pocketbook,” she said in an email.

Source: thestar April 22, 2018 19:52 UTC